The One With The New School
by Sweetheart Seer
Summary: St. Albus's is...it's everything that Lily Evans isn't used to and the wealth of it grates at her skin. But she has Severus and Dorcas and Mary and well, things will be okay, right? (A part of the St. Albus's verse)


She's fourteen and she dyes her hair blue. She leaves splashes of vibrant cerulean on the porcelain of the sink, the curling linoleum, even- inexplicably- a high up spot on the off white wall behind the toilet. When Petunia pushes into the bathroom after at least two minutes of knocking, she's crying, blue stained hands scrubbing at the splotches, her hair still sticky and damp and coated in the dye, piled atop her head. Her mouth opens and then closes once more and Lily is trying, she's _trying_ , to calm down. But she's babbling and blubbering and Petunia sits next to her, perching on the edge of the bathtub.

"Why are you trying to dye your hair?" She finally asks, the words cutting through the ammonia filled air.

She can't say that it's because the world is spinning out of her hands and out of control, that it's like sand through a sieve and she's afraid of what's being left behind. That it's one thing she could control and change. That she wanted to be someone new or something new or anything new. That looking into the mirror was like swallowing glass because she was still here with her hair like a sunset and Dad was gone and his hair was turning into a fog or a storm or something else entirely and how was she to know what.

So Lily just shrugs her shoulders, staring down at her feet, toes curling and digging in the rug on the ground. Petunia sighs and reaches up, touching, gently with a cautious hand, a damp strand of hair.

"Your hair was such a pretty color before," she murmurs, lips drawing into a line.

(This is before she hates her, before they fight like warring nations over the hair dryer, before she isn't invited to the wedding, before she's crossed off Christmas card lists, before she might as well be dead to her own sister.)

(This is when their names are still said on one breath, Lily and Petunia, sprouting a garden on their mother's tongue when she calls them to supper. This is when Lily slips into her room at night to split a package of biscuits and talk about everything going on around them, when they don't know whose clothing goes in which closet, when they can speak volumes in a single glance.)

And so she laughs, because suddenly, her blue stained hair, the color seeping into the material of her t-shirt, is the funniest thing in the world. Her laugh is loud and impossibly there, filling space with an almost physical presence. Slowly, Petunia begins to laugh as well, softer, more refined, a titter of giggling.

When their mother arrives home later that evening, a brown paper bag of groceries tucked into the crook of her arm, they watch her heart stop then start after a moment, her eyes trained on her youngest daughter, an ocean swinging in her ponytail, specks of dye on her forehead, behind her ears. She says nothing; instead she puts the can of beans in the cabinet, exhaling a slow breath.

Lily keeps the hair for three months, sixteen days, and two minutes- give or take. She doesn't know that in only a year Petunia will stop looking at her and start looking through her, as though she isn't even there.

It's a new school and everything is different. The tiles clack differently under her Mary Jane's. The smells (chalk dust, expensive boy's aftershave, processed potatoes, wood shavings) aren't the same. The lockers are the wrong color. The textbooks are the wrong brand. The lunch tables are rectangular, not round. The rooms are all too big. The halls are too wide and too long and have too many stairways. She knows she should be excited, that she should be bursting at the seams because she _got in._

But instead her stomach is in knots, twisted and bent and crooked and the wool of her skirt rubs against her legs in the wrong way and her shirt is too stiff and her socks keep slouching down around her ankles and the tie around her neck feels too much like a noose for her comfort.

She had worked so hard, the memory of nights spent pouring over scholarship applications, over text books, over recommendation letters and her mother's tax returns pressed forward in her mind. And yet when she steps into St. Albus's for the first time, her satchel clutched tightly in her hand, Lily only feels apprehension. But, she takes a deep breath and starts taking short strides toward the main office.

 _(She remembers all too well the look on Petunia's face when their letters came in the mail, wax sealed and embossed with the four house symbol of St. Albus's Preparatory School. They were screaming and jumping and Tuney looked particularly un-Tuneylike as she bounced on her heels, her normally unreadable face split in a wide grin. They counted to three and tore open the letters and as Lily's face rose, Petunia's fell. That afternoon had marked the beginning of the end. For the rest of the school year, her sister had steadily cut the ties between them, hacking and sawing at the bond grown over years._

 _They had been a garden but she had become a scythe, cutting the heads off flowers.)_

And so the taste in her mouth is bittersweet as she pushes open the heavy wooden door, her heart pounding in her throat. "Hello?" Lily calls out, frowning slightly as she steps into the seemingly empty office space. "I'm Lily, Lily Evans. I'm supposed to be starting today?" She adds, the door falling shut behind her with an almost ominous "thud." The frown on her face deepens as she takes a few more steps toward the front desk. She rises up on her tiptoes and tries to peek into the open office, the door only slightly ajar.

Lily lets out a huff and decides she's going to be brave; she's going to walk into that office like her knees aren't knocking together with each step. She nods to herself, affirming her decision before she steps around the empty desk and heads toward the open office. Next to the door is a small bronze plaque that reads "Headmistress Minerva McGonagall." She recognizes the name as the one scrawled at the bottom of her acceptance letter in green ink.

 _Be brave_ , Lily reminds herself as she reaches out to push open the door. Unfortunately, the door swings open before she can. Instead, she is nearly run over by a teenage boy, his shirt thin and off white, too short tie neatly knotted high on his collar. He's got a hooked sort of nose and dark eyes that brush over her as he sulks past.

With the door now fully pushed open, Lily's given a view of a tidy office, walls a dark panelled wood- like much of the school, but something about it seems less stuffy and stodgy.

The woman sitting behind the desk, who she can only guess is the headmistress, looks up at her over the rim of her glasses and gestures for her to come in. "You must be Miss Evans, I presume. Please, have a seat." The woman motions towards one of the leather armchairs with a long, thin arm. She pushes a small metal tin forward. "Biscuit?"

Lily blinks a few times before sitting and taking one of the biscuits. She rests her satchel on her lap and crosses her ankles. Then uncrosses her ankles. The headmistress offers her a smile, a surprisingly warm one at that.

"You have no reason to be nervous, Miss Evans. We at St. Albus's are pleased to have you joining us for the remainder of this school year. Now, normally students don't begin until the start of a term, but as we are only a month in, you should have no problems catching up if your transcripts are an accurate indication," she moves the metal tin of biscuits out of Lily's reach as she speaks, before going into details about schedules and expectations.

The impromptu meeting lasted longer than Lily had expected and by the time she steps out of the main office, her schedule tight in her hands, first hour has already begun. At least the halls are empty. She glances down at the paper in her hands. History with Binns. Right. Wonderful. But where is that?

It takes her another fifteen minutes to find the classroom, thank God it was in the main building. When she pushes open the door, the professor falls silent, looking at her with confusion written across his washed out face. Lily offers a meek smile and tries to ignore the flush creeping into her cheeks. She can _feel_ everyone staring at her. She hands Professor Binns the note written by the headmistress before he waves his hand, telling her to go find an empty seat. And just like that he's droning on again about some rebellion in some unheard of part of the world.

She's trying to avoid eye contact while searching for an open seat, which proves much easier said than done. Eventually, she manages to settle into a seat next to the boy she had bumped into earlier that morning. He doesn't offer her a smile or even so much as his name. If anything, he seems rather prickly. His shoulders hunched forward, head tilted down so his curtain of scraggly hair covers his face.

She frowns slightly and extends a hand towards him anyway, a small smile on her face. "I'm Lily," she offers, voice low in a whisper. The boy looks up, his brows furrowing as he glances over at her. His face is rather sallow, she notes. He slowly sets down his pen and takes her hand.

"Severus," he mumbles, pulling his hand back and turning back to his notebook. He doesn't seem very welcoming, but some of the harshness in his posture has seeped away and she counts that as a victory.

After Binns' lecture, and what a long bloody lecture it had been, Lily looks down at her schedule, a frown creasing her face. "Excuse me," she says, reaching over to touch Severus's arm. He tenses slightly, but looks her way anyway. "I have biology with Slughorn next, could you tell me where that is?" She questions, pushing her schedule towards him. He stands up, his ratty bag slung over his shoulder.

"I have that next, you can follow me," he mumbles, clearing his throat before he speaks. Lily breaks out into a wide grin and hurriedly pushes her notebook and textbook back into her bag before following Severus out.

Within a two months, she has pried Severus from his shell and she thinks it is more than safe to call him her friend. Like her, he's from the outskirts of the city and lives in a rundown two bedroom, only a ten minute walk from her own home. They are surrounded by silver spoons, house parties thrown at _estates_ , pearly white teeth and new shoes each term.

She's memorized the scent of money when it drifts past her in the hall. It's a daze of cashmere and Tiffany tennis bracelets and Calvin Klein bobby socks carelessly shoved into gym lockers. Not everyone turns their nose down at her for the roughness of her own accent, the quickly passed knowledge that she's only able to attend St. Albus's on scholarship.

She's got Severus, of course, but she partners with Dorcas during Maths and a sickly boy named Remus sits next to her in Lit, and they've gotten rather friendly. And there's Mary who won't stop trying to get her to join her in the after school drama program, and she's made a few friends of sorts in the Slug Club, a science group Professor Slughorn strong armed her into joining. And she's well liked amongst her house, Glendor. (It's so strange, the school split into houses, but she doesn't question it too deeply.)

Each night she sits next to Severus on a musty smelling bus for over an hour, only to step foot into a cold, quiet home. Petunia won't even so much as look at her, not anymore. Her fifteenth birthday had been a quiet affair. A store bought cake, a new pair of flats, not even a smile from her sister. Her sixteenth is approaching and she can't even bring herself to think about it. So she doesn't. Instead, she buries her nose in her books and tries to earn her keep at St. Albus's.

Some days Mary splays herself out across Lily's bed, her hair sweeping the dusty hardwood floor. And Lily tries not to be embarrassed about the painfully working class look of her home, but it's hard, even though she knows she doesn't care. Mary stretches her long legs out, casually, carelessly, always in that effortlessly elegant way that baffles Lily.  
"So, I heard that Dearborn and Amelia were caught snogging back behind the tennis courts during fifth, which makes no sense. She's been pining after Davy for months now and Cardoc is with Hestia, last I knew at least, which makes this entire thing wildly strange, right?"

She blurts out gossip whenever silence falls, always having a new bit of information to spread or share.

Lily will roll onto her back to gaze up at her ceiling next to Mary, eyes glued to the stuck on, glowing stars her dad had helped her arrange when she was young, or she'll lean back against her pink headboard, throw pillow clutched to her chest. "Mary," she starts, deadpan, the same every time, "I have no idea who _any_ of those people even are."

And then they find themselves laughing, the type of laughter that causes tears to leak from the corners of their eyes and their arms to wrap around their aching stomachs. They never know why it's funny, but it never stops. (It takes Lily three more months to learn the names of the housemates in her year.)

Other days, she and Severus walk home from the bus stop, their ties loosened around their necks, Lily's blazer swinging from her pinky, his still buttoned properly. He doesn't smile much, but then again, he never has, but he always smiles at her as she carries on about whatever happened that day. They split a bag of Maltesers and Lily smears chocolate along the pads of her fingers and the corners of her lips. She pretends she doesn't notice Severus staring at her lips.

They split the distance between their houses and sit under the Big Tree, reading or studying or sharing notes or simply talking.

She ignores the way Petunia looks at her, the narrowed eyes and sour twist to her lips. She says she hates Severus, that he's a creep. She turns her nose up when Lily does homework in the kitchen, so she makes sure to work in her bedroom with the door closed. She brings around Vernon Dursley more and more and Lily hates his wobbling jowls and his too small eyes and the way he barks orders at her sister, her sister who just smiles and complies and causes Lily's nerves to fizzle.

Her mother is wilting and waning and becoming a thing of glass before her eyes. The shifts she takes at the hospital have her home later and later each night and she seems to be melting away. Home has stopped feeling like an escape and when she lays awake at night, her heart aching for what once was, Lily brushes her fingers across a patch of hair, still, barely tinted blue against her neck.


End file.
